Recently, depositors of the rural town bank in Henan province publicly accused the bank of complicity in illegal lending and demanded that they be held criminally responsible. They also requested the confirmation of the validity of the deposit contracts and urged the Henan rural town bank to repay the principal and interest.
Hu Weiming and Ba Zhongjun, depositors of the Henan rural town bank, have publicly accused the Rural Town Bank Risk Disposal Working Group of fraudulently protecting depositors and covering up the criminal responsibility of the Agricultural Bank system for illegal lending. The parties involved include the Henan New Wealth Group, Henan Zhongzhou Group, Henan Provincial Cooperative Union, among others.
In their open letter, Hu Weiming and Ba Zhongjun put forward legal demands:
1. The Risk Disposal Working Group fabricated the fact of “financial agreements,” suspected of contract fraud under Article 224 of the Criminal Law. The working group knowingly altered the legal relationship of depositors holding deposit certificates, transfer records, and signed contracts, categorizing it as “investment management,” falsely claiming an agreement between depositors and the “New Wealth Group” while refusing to repay depositors.
2. The Agricultural Bank system’s irregular lending led to liquidity depletion.
3. Shifting the blame violates depositors’ legitimate rights. The working group shifted the responsibilities arising from the Agricultural Bank’s regulatory negligence and resulting bad debts by fabricating “investment management agreements.” The actual funding chain rupture path goes as follows: the rural town bank consolidated depositors’ funds to the Agricultural Bank, which, in turn, incurred significant bad debts due to irregular lending to the Zhongzhou Group.
The working group confuses responsibility paths, fabricating that depositors entrusted the “New Wealth Group for investment management,” while the losses arising from the New Wealth Group directing funds to the Zhongzhou Group’s related loans are classified as “investment risks.”
Hu Weiming claimed that all evidence lists have been notarized and fixed, including deposit nature confirmation evidence and fabricated evidence by the Henan rural town bank’s Risk Disposal Working Group.
Hu Weiming and Ba Zhongjun demand that the Supreme Court exercise its supervisory jurisdiction to initiate criminal cases, confirm civil rights, and carve out liabilities. They specifically request the clear delineation that the fraudulent loans by the Zhongzhou Group fall under the Agricultural Bank system’s bad debts, prohibiting the misappropriation of depositors’ funds to fill the illegal lending hole.
They stated, “If deposits can be unilaterally reclassified by administrative authorities as ‘investment management,’ what credibility does commercial bank law retain? If citizens’ legal property rights are diminished to mask local debts, where does the foundation of the rule of law in China lie?”
In April 2022, four rural town banks in Henan, including Yuzhou Xinminsheng Rural Town Bank, Shangcai Huimin Rural Town Bank, Zhecheng Huanghuai Rural Town Bank, Kaifeng Xindongfang Rural Town Bank, unexpectedly halted online withdrawals and transfers, leading to a financial scandal where at least 400,000 depositors, involving a minimum of 40 billion yuan, were unable to withdraw their funds simultaneously.
The Henan rural town bank financial crisis has been ongoing for nearly four years, and affected depositors have expressed their grievances, with their deposits frozen, plunging them into dire circumstances.
Ms. Hu Weiming, a depositor, began making multiple deposits into her personal account at the Henan rural town bank since 2018, accumulating deposits totaling 19 million yuan, almost all of her family’s savings. After the rural town bank went bankrupt, she went to Zhengzhou, Henan on Chinese New Year’s Eve in February 2024 to reclaim her deposits using her recently deceased father’s ashes. Instead, she was taken to detention for about 10 months.
On December 10, 2025, she and two other depositors went to the Xuchang Agricultural Commercial Bank’s head office in hopes of inquiring about when they could withdraw their deposits. Shortly after they entered the bank, many unidentified individuals confiscated their phones, drove them out, and threatened to detain them.
Subsequently, the three were each held in a small room for up to 18 hours without food, with Ms. Hu Weiming having several asthmatic and heart episodes. Despite her requests for medical attention, she was denied.
Hailing from Henan, Ba Zhongjun revealed that his family is currently in the direst situation. He had kept his family’s entire savings in the Yuzhou Xinminsheng Rural Town Bank in Henan but cannot access it at all.
In their pursuit of rights protection, the couple has been unemployed for nearly a year, owning neither property nor a car, while still responsible for taking care of elderly parents and children. Harassed by relevant authorities in Shanghai multiple times at their rented residence, pressuring the landlord and threatening eviction, they have been forced to hide frequently to save money and avoid harassment, even resorting to sleeping outdoors.
Having faced unlawful detention, captivity, abuse, robbery of personal belongings, and other oppressive acts during their rights protection efforts in Beijing and Henan, Ba Zhongjun was insulted, slapped, spat on, and physically assaulted by public security personnel at the Xuchang Agricultural Commercial Bank’s head office on December 10, 2025, all of which he recorded as evidence.